What major event in DC Comics history caused the most damage?

[Dataweaver]

I started in 1992.

Likely aorund when I entered, just in time to go "wow I really like Hal!" and then have ET shoved in my face.

So I've spent most of my time in back issues than what was being done in the 90s because oh boy did it leave a baaaaaaaaaaad taste in the mouth of a seven year old to have that happen.

I started in 1985, with my earliest memories being the issue of New Titans where Dick retired the Robin identity (and, over in Batman, passed it on to a new kid named Jason Todd) and Wally left the team, and the Green Lantern story arc where Hal had been replaced as Earth's Lantern by John Stewart and was fighting without a ring to reestablish his place in the Corps. The latter story was what the Green Lantern title was up to during the Crisis on Infinite Earths, and continued with the Green Lantern title being rebranded as Green Lantern Corps and following the exploits of a team of seven Earth-based Lanterns (even though only two of them were human). And while I had seen one or two Superman comics before then, it was just enough for me to recognize that John Byrne's relaunch of Superman was changing things for him. Meanwhile, Barry Allen died in the Crisis and Wally took over the Flash identity.

So I got into the post-Crisis DCU on the ground floor… and then life happened and I dropped out of comics again until 1992, with the Death of Superman and Knightfall, and Tim Drake flying solo with the first ever Robin ongoing series. That, in turn, lead to me backtracking a bit and finding out about how Tim had become Robin and what had happened to that Jason kid I had briefly read about seven years earlier. Emerald Twilight lead to Kyle Rayner becoming Green Lantern. After Zero Hour, I got into the rebooted Legion of Superheroes as well, but also Starman. And of course, it wasn't long until Ollie died and we were introduced to Connor Hawke.

My early experience with comics was all about change, and I doubt that I would have been drawn in by DC if they had remained as they had been in the early 80s. Even when Morrison brought back the “big seven” JLA near the end of the decade, out was a mixture of old and new, with Wally and Kyle fighting alongside Clark, Bruce, and Diana; and that notion continued with Young Justice and the return of both the Titans and the JSA: Starman had had its impact, and I was now rooting for the legacy concept.

Then Dan Didio came along. YJ and Titans were savaged by the poorly-named Graduation Day; between Wargames and Identity Crisis, Tim Drake took it on the chin; and then there was Infinite Crisis, which had as its premise that everything I had been following for the last decade was an unrelenting spiral of darkness that had to be stopped by the return of the original Superman… only for him to be killed and for an actual darkening of the stories that had started in 2003 to accelerate through the next decade-plus. Life happened again, this time nicely synchronized with Flashpoint which made New 52 a great jumping-off point for me; and I didn't really come back until Convergence and Multiversity. I followed Superman: Lois & Clark and Titans Hunt during the “DCYou” year, and was all in when DCU Rebirth provided to bring back much of what New 52 had jettisoned; though it felt more like “damage control” than an actual rebirth.

At this point, I've become accustomed to a roller-coaster ride, where everything seems to be a tug-of-war between developers with very different, and largely incompatible, ideas as to where to go next. DC is now damaged goods, and I'm not sure it can recover.

So to answer the original question: to me, the major event in DC comics history that caused the most damage was Titans/YJ: Graduation Day. That was the point that Dan DiDio truly took over control at DC and started tearing down everything I loved about the DCU.

[NathanS]

I’ll be honest yeah the DC seemed like a bleak imagination-less place in the 90s when your intro is “Here’s s cool thing! Wait no, now he’s a mass murderer, and everyone will tell the person you liked is **** and bad and suggesting otherwise is dumb and stupid. But don’t worry we plan to copy past “slack teen who is suffering under the weight with living up to the legacy of the previous generation” because we think that’s just.. the only damn character arc worth anything and olds are stinky and gross.”

To belclear as I've grown older I do my best to understand where other views come form, but the DCU and its fandom in the 90s were and often still are very unwelcoming assholes if you dare to disagree with them.

[marhawkman]

I’ll be honest yeah the DC seemed like a bleak imagination-less place in the 90s when your intro is “Here’s s cool thing! Wait no, now he’s a mass murderer, and everyone will tell the person you liked is **** and bad and suggesting otherwise is dumb and stupid. But don’t worry we plan to copy past “slack teen who is suffering under the weight with living up to the legacy of the previous generation” because we think that’s just.. the only damn character arc worth anything and olds are stinky and gross.”

To belclear as I've grown older I do my best to understand where other views come form, but the DCU and its fandom in the 90s were and often still are very unwelcoming assholes if you dare to disagree with them.

that's a weird thing... I started in the 90s... but.... part of what defined DC for me... was the old Superfriends and DCAU. Yes, when i think of the Justice League I think of THIS:

"but they weren't..." don't care.

[Stanlos]

.
So to answer the original question: to me, the major event in DC comics history that caused the most damage was Titans/YJ: Graduation Day. That was the point that Dan DiDio truly took over control at DC and started tearing down everything I loved about the DCU.

Dan DiDio and to a lesser extent Geoff Johns. I am unsure if we will truly recover

[All Star Superman]

Ages them in a way you can't take back. I'm against aging characters, because eventually they age out. If these characters still have stories 100 years from now I still want Superman to be Clark and Batman to be Bruce, not their kids or grandkids.

I do as well, and that's why the easiest and most logical solution is essentially say "we're now shifting focus to a new universe, familiar yet different." Do this every twenty or so years and you can keep the DCU changing while also preserving its past in universes that are simply no longer the main focus or a focus at all. This is why Johns' Metaverse idea was so brilliant. Simple, effective, and it explains everything. DiDio and Lee returned, kicked Johns' ideas to the curb, and brought in Snyder to muddle things so badly that there's little hope of repairing DC in comics.

[HsssH]

I love Justice League: Dark and I love that it used Khalid Nassour including because it created a ripple effect that led to awareness of his character, people liking him and even him getting an appearance in animation (I don't believe he would have appeared at all in Young Justice if he hadn't gotten a main cast role in JLD)

That said, JLD still ends up representative of my point because at the end of the series, Kent and Nabu were both dead, so Khalid is deprieved of essential elements to his character. If Khalid ever got his own book again, he'd still be deprieved of those two elements because that book has to be in continuity with the rest of the DC universe. With MC2, it wouldn't have mattered if Peter Parker was dead in the mainline because May's story is independent, so May can still have her dad. What happens in one work does not disrupt the character and its story.

I remember having real weird feeling, while reading Terrifics, because it basically destroyed Metamorpho's "status quo". And sure, he isn't popular character so who cares, but I wonder how often minor characters in team books get such treatment. It is good that they were present on teams that people liked, but it doesn't look like anyone is now rushing to write new stories about them.

[HsssH]

I do as well, and that's why the easiest and most logical solution is essentially say "we're now shifting focus to a new universe, familiar yet different." Do this every twenty or so years and you can keep the DCU changing while also preserving its past in universes that are simply no longer the main focus or a focus at all. This is why Johns' Metaverse idea was so brilliant. Simple, effective, and it explains everything. DiDio and Lee returned, kicked Johns' ideas to the curb, and brought in Snyder to muddle things so badly that there's little hope of repairing DC in comics.

I think that they should have done that in 90s when they were introducing many new characters. Now it would just create even bigger mess.

[dietrich]

That's interesting. Do you think DC will ever actually allow anyone to replace Bruce and Clark?

Never and I don't understand those who suggest that they should do. People ignore that DC is a business and their main objective is to make money. Replacing such icon characters would be launacy.

[marhawkman]

I remember having real weird feeling, while reading Terrifics, because it basically destroyed Metamorpho's "status quo". And sure, he isn't popular character so who cares, but I wonder how often minor characters in team books get such treatment. It is good that they were present on teams that people liked, but it doesn't look like anyone is now rushing to write new stories about them.

honestly.... that's true almost every time a minor character gets used.

Like one example I've mentioned a bit... https://community.cbr.com/showthread...ion-2023/page5

That's the most significant plot development Scorch ever got. It lead to her nearly getting killed helping the Justice League defeat the Burning Martian. Which... required Scorch to perform a feat of power that's... truly ridiculous, and makes her seem incredibly scary. It's not her first story, not even her first BIG story, but... it redefined the character in a positive and HUGE way. This being that a woman who got superpowers by agreeing to be the JOKER'S henchwoman in the Emperor Joker event... does a heroic sacrifice to save the world. She couldn't fight Fernus, but what she could do... was absorb the heat of a nuclear explosion.... and smother it by storing it inside herself. Which POes Fernus, and he tries to kill her.

Which... where does Scorch go after that? well... other than a hospital? 'cause that happened. Well, yeah, Scorch didn't get used much after that, and never as a proper villain... but she never acted as a hero either. Which was one of those things where the writers only used her when they had some gimmick to have her act under someone else's motives. But it's one of those things where you wonder what writers are gonna do and if they're gonna do something REALLY dumb with her.

[Aahz]

Never and I don't understand those who suggest that they should do. People ignore that DC is a business and their main objective is to make money. Replacing such icon characters would be launacy.

Even temporarily replacing them leads after maybe short initial sales spike usually to a decline in sales.
Afiak even the short era with Jon Kent as lead on the main Superman Book, and Clark being at War world, caused a pretty bad sales for the entire franchise.

I'm actually still wondering why anyone at the higher levels of DC thougth that something like 5G, that was afaik meant to replace them in the main line for several years, was a good idea...

[marhawkman]

Even temporarily replacing them leads after maybe short initial sales spike usually to a decline in sales.
Afiak even the short era with Jon Kent as lead on the main Superman Book, and Clark being at War world, caused a pretty bad sales for the entire franchise.

I'm actually still wondering why anyone at the higher levels of DC thougth that something like 5G, that was afaik meant to replace them in the main line for several years, was a good idea...

to some extent that's about good/bad stories. IE how much do people like the new stories?

[D.Z]

Nothing to me. Not related to the events, it's the woke stuff that is more annoying.

I would prefer for DC to go back to Earth 1 for several reasons. Or something new (not reboot but new universe) to replace Earth 0 and just move away from publishing most books being set on Earth 0.

[JorgeJ77]

Nothing to me. Not related to the events, it's the woke stuff that is more annoying.

I would prefer for DC to go back to Earth 1 for several reasons. Or something new (not reboot but new universe) to replace Earth 0 and just move away from publishing most books being set on Earth 0.

Well sir, i'm very sorry there's nothing for new. Now, if you wanna still live in the past, that's your loss

[All Star Superman]

Nothing to me. Not related to the events, it's the woke stuff that is more annoying.

I would prefer for DC to go back to Earth 1 for several reasons. Or something new (not reboot but new universe) to replace Earth 0 and just move away from publishing most books being set on Earth 0.

I agree with all of your points completely. The current DCU Earth is too far gone. I'd like to see a shift to a new set of core universes (ten at the max) that would be home to several titles. Earth-One could be the iconic DCU as it existed pre-COIE but updated and without any of the pandering that has corrupted much of the current storytelling both at DC and elsewhere.

[clonegeek]

I agree with all of your points completely. The current DCU Earth is too far gone. I'd like to see a shift to a new set of core universes (ten at the max) that would be home to several titles. Earth-One could be the iconic DCU as it existed pre-COIE but updated and without any of the pandering that has corrupted much of the current storytelling both at DC and elsewhere.

Have the Classic Earth 2 back and show the heros who debuted in the 30+ years since Crisis. Oh and Alan Scott is straight again on that Earth.